Alrewas To Burton Upon Trent, 5 Locks.

Not an average day, but then we are not the average boat........... Boo Boo.

The weather guessers were all unanimous in their guesses yesterday in that the whole of the bottom half of England was going to be under water by four o'clock this afternoon.

This, combined with the fact that we were probably due another run of sheep all coming through at the same time in the morning and totally clogging the lock, led us to book an early start.

Early doors soon arrived and off we went into this idyllic morning, T shirts on but you could still see your breath though.
Into the first lock and half way down I noticed the number two alternator light was glowing, then, also that the instrument panel was dead.........great!

Refilling the lock and reversing out brought a bit of an Hokey Cokey flavour to the morning.
You put your boat in the lock.... you take your boat back out the lock....you do the Hokey Cokey and you turn............Ow, ear slap.

Much unnecessary investigation later and it turned out that I had knocked the battery master switch to off for that system when I took the tiller arm from its overnight clamp.

I have been taking that tiller arm from that clamp every day for more or less a year and a half with no problem,........ but this morning I knocked the switch to off.
As Del Boy would say, (as well as someone much closer) ....what a plonker!

It's very, very busy through here as we leave our spot, the moorings on the left are private so that gap could not be filled.

One major problem when boats repeatedly pack together like this is the diesel scum on the water. It's clearly visible in the previous picture as well.

Unbelievably (for this time in the morning) whilst I was trying to find and fix the problem a boat came by and took the lock. This turned out to be a female single hander, D helped her through the lock which, with the benefit of hindsight, might have been a mistake as she was waiting at every lock from then on.

The above weir is the end of the river section, canal to the left, river to the right, you do the Hokey Co.................

Things are not all they seem to be here, this looks so tranquil, so peaceful and rural but no more than thirty feet on your right the A38 dual carriageway traffic thunders by.
It was a bit surreal though, we were chomping bacon sandwiches travelling at three miles an hour as the lorry drivers looked down at us from their seventy mile an hour eyries.


We have arrived at Burton Upon Trent before the supposed rain storm and have got ourselves all battened down.
It is now five fifteen and it is (in the words of Peter Kay)........ "Spitting"




Until next time.......................





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